THE DOG WAS THE FIRST DOMESTICATED ANIMAL WADE ETC ETC

This is the story that gets told over and overe again.

Why not tell you a different story?

The domestication of dog story dovetails with the sedentism story.

That story has now been found not to have been tied after all with the first development of agriculture story.

Different stories, after all, it seems, sedentism and agriculture.

Why should the development of the first domestic animal be different? Any cleaner, any more elegant?  Any more simple?

Why should it be a simple progressive Whig story at all?  Why?

So, what really were the first domesticated animals, in the real world?

I will tell you, here.

I won't candy coat it. 

If anything, the extraordinarily complex reality will have been substantially less beautiful than my narrative.

This post is dedicated to Nicholas Wade.